--- Quote from: CircleDock on April 24, 2012, 06:34:10 AM ---Ummm... You're part of the Team, you discovered it, wrote about it and, I assume, reported it -- and it hasn't been fixed???!!--- End quote ---

I suspect it's a case of "Perceived priorities", CD.

As I'd kinda unilaterally decided that it was time to shout about it, I did. ;)

I'm expecting a bit of flak over it, naturally. ;)

emanuele:

--- Quote from: CircleDock on April 24, 2012, 06:34:10 AM ---And just how are you supposed to test if a backup is working? If it's faulty, you'll probably lose (part of) your site in the process.

--- End quote ---If you want to test a backup you do it off-line on your own computer or at least on another database, of course you *never* do it with your live site.

kat:
You can often tell just from the size of the file, I would assume.

I've never used the thing, myself, because, when I very first used SMF, I realised that there's nowhere in the Admin section to actually restore what you save, there.

So, I found the CPanel way of doing it, PDQ.

But, for some nooBs, it may not be that obvious.

I've always kinda assumed that we all want SMF to be as user-friendly as possible and this fails, in that, big-time.

Sir Osis of Liver:

--- Quote from: 青山 素子 on April 24, 2012, 01:37:30 AM ---Still, people should be testing their backups instead of just relying on hope.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: emanuele on April 24, 2012, 07:22:08 AM ---If you want to test a backup you do it off-line on your own computer or at least on another database, of course you *never* do it with your live site.

--- End quote ---

Bear in mind that the same noobs who don't recognize the backup problem are also unlikely to know how to safely test a backup, and would certainly run the risk of trashing their forum if they tried it on a production board, as emanuele points out.

Placing the onus on the user does not excuse a serious deficiency in a critical function.

Adish - (F.L.A.M.E.R):

--- Quote from: Krash. on April 23, 2012, 09:53:20 PM ------ Quote from: (F.L.A.M.E.R) on April 23, 2012, 07:03:45 PM ---Sometimes you do get a good backup, while sometimes you don't.

--- End quote ---

That's really the whole point - it's unreliable, and it's a critical function. There's no error or any indication that the backup has failed. An experienced user will notice that the backup file is way too small, but not everyone is an experienced user. If it's a major problem to fix it, shouldn't be too difficult to issue a patch that removes it altogether.

--- End quote ---The thing is, the backup method implemented is based on the server configurations. Now, we have to work through the very widely used server configuration to work on a fix for this or an alternate way which does not abuse the server resources would be a good idea. I am pretty sure this idea was brought forward previously from what I remember. Something was started back then but never got implemented either.

Many FREE hosts don't allow database backup's for free. In order to help them out, this backup method is sort of a work around. At least something is better than nothing. But I have to admit, there could be a better way out there.